#i mean girlie as a gender neutral term!

[chugging-antiseptic-dye]

✧ the cards are never in your favour ✧

(joshua x tarot! reader) part one

part : 1 I 2 I 3

joshua never thought that one day he would put his trust into the mystical. here's how it all started:

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩

and the next day:

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩

(a/n: i know there is technically no romance. but think of it as prequel to their story!!)

[rin-hanarin]

I just love seeing the same 5 to 10 specific people going crazy over Lucanis here, you know who you are and I salute you 🫡

[vampirememory]

quality ✧ do you need to lower or raise your standards? [Love PAC]

Hello! I believe this is my first pick a card of 2024, I hope you appreciate the topic I chose. This is something that I recently had to recognize and deal with myself, so hopefully you find this reading helpful.

Pick a photo or a number one through three and continue reading to find your reading.

One

No, absolutely not. If anything, your standards are too low. You are like me, at least myself a few weeks/months ago when I did not value myself. You need to understand that you are 100% valuable and loved, and that there is nothing that can depreciate your value. You may have been overconsuming readings, questioning as to why you continue getting into toxic relationships or completely lack a relationship and it's because you have a negative sense of self. Listening to self-worth or self concept subliminals may help you. You are worthy of a healthy, happy relationship but you need to be healthy yourself first. Now keep in mind, healthy does not mean without illnesses. I know from my experience with depression, I will never be healthy, but you CAN have a healthy outlook on life and a healthy sense of self, which is what you are looking for. Especially for my mentally ill friends, no one (not here, at least) is expecting you to be 100% healthy but to be as healthy as you can be, if that makes sense.

Two

Girlie, I hate to tell you but your standards are high as fuck. But is that a bad thing? You tell me. To be clear, when I say girlie I am 100% being gender neutral, this reading is for everyone ^-^! You're giving boss bitch energy, but are you actually a boss bitch? One thing about having high standards is that you also need to meet those standards yourself and you need to ask yourself "would someone like that want to date me"? For example, if you're really aiming for a basketball player or the top CEO, are you actually in a mental and physical space where that will happen? Are you out on the courts, networking and integrating yourself into sports environments? Are you working your way up to the top, making connections with higher ups and building a good reputation? I think you may have good standards, but you aren't reaching them yourself or not putting yourself in environments where you'll meet said person. Also make sure you are actually maintaining those standards too. If you think education is important, and you're actively in education and want someone else who is too, why settle for someone who hates education or isn't looking to educate themselves? Things like that make all the difference. If you want to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk too.

Three

This pile gives me much softer vibes than the other two piles. Your standards and romantic requests may be more traditional, you may want the house and the kids and the white picket fence and that's totally fine! I think you're doing well in terms of your standards, you uphold them and you aren't putting yourself in situations where you are with people who are against that dream or against those standards. I do need to warn you, however, that there are a lot of exploitive people out there, especially when it comes to wanting a more traditional homelife. Waiting is a completely fine thing to do. Don't jump at the first person that looks nice and ticks all the boxes because they may be lying. I don't see terrible things happening for you but I feel like I needed to include a warning. Just be careful and you'll get your wishes <3.

Thats all for today my friends! Check out my masterlist for my previous readings and remember to stay safe in this crazy world! Feel free to send asks with any topics you would like to see in the future.

[olderthannetfic]

Things I hate that I thought were tumblr exclusives, but that I've put up with IRL this year: being called girlie, bitch, babygirl, and sweetie and then getting people get mad at me when I say I'm a trans man. "That's not a gendered term!" "It's gender-neutral!" That's nice. I set a boundary and since you've decided not to respect it, we don't talk now. Yes, even if we're on a group project together. The final is only worth 20% of our grade. I have a 98.7% in this class. I can take the hit to my grade.

There is no girlie bitch babygirl sweetie here. My gender is many things. It is none of those. I don't care that people tell me this means I hate AAVE or I'm a gender essentialist on tumblr or being called sensitive IRL. Find a babygirl girlie sweetie bitch to go cry to.

There's immense power in realizing you can just opt out of shit. You know that quote, "canceling plans is like heroin"? Shutting down is like a really good dose of Clonazepam. Sucks that your grade is about to suffer. Sounds like a you problem.

--

[saintsenara]

Thoughts on remadora?

thank you very much for the asks, anons!

while they are by no means my otp, i really enjoy remadora as pairing - and i think they’re fully up there among the canon couples in terms of being an amazing vehicle through which to explore all sorts of questions about life and love - which i am aware is a sufficiently controversial statement that it involves an immediate engagement with some discourse…

because remadora girlies [gender neutral] get an enormous amount of shit within the fandom, particularly from fans who consider wolfstar to be a more plausible pairing for lupin than tonks. i have seen remadora shippers called homophobes for simply enjoying the couple, justified with the bizarre idea that it disrespects remus' relationship with sirius [so... the non-canon one?] to put them together. i have seen tonks turned into a pathetic shrew who is trying to keep remus from the real love of his life by trapping him with an unwanted baby. i have seen remadora shippers get a lot of the usual stuff that people who prefer the canon-endgame couples do [that to ship a canon pair is boring, that it is indicative of a lack of talent, that it indicates an uncritical support for jkr] magnified to eleven because tonks has the temerity to be a barrier to remus’ relationship with the fandom’s favourite hot and brooding man.

obviously, this is bullshit - primarily because its unreasonable and cruel to invest so much time and energy being mean to people because of their harry potter shipping preferences [fandom should never be that deep].

but it’s also a disappointment to me personally because it means that it can be very hard to find the sort of remadora i like without looking like i’m coming to contribute to the pile-on. because where many remadora fans and i don’t see eye-to-eye is that i have absolutely no interest in thinking about them as a relationship which is actually functional. and, all too often, i find myself sifting through fics which do prefer to interpret them like this - as romantic and passionate and stable - largely, i think it’s fair to say, as a defensive move against the tide of “urgh, imagine shipping that” nonsense - even though all the evidence of canon is that they are… very much not.

i am aware of the pottermore article which smoothes the edges of lupin’s canonical reaction to tonks’ feelings for him in half-blood prince - but, while i read this as something of a retcon to make the relationship more palatable, i also don’t think that assuming that both tonks and lupin’s attraction to each other was sincere precludes them being as dysfunctional as they canonically are. i don’t go in for the common anti-remadora argument that tonks “forces” him into a relationship with her - it’s clear in half-blood prince that it’s not only her who has discussed her feelings with molly and arthur weasley, lupin is definitely flirting with her when they pick harry up in order of the phoenix, lupin is an adult man [no matter other power imbalances between him and tonks - such as the fact that she is an agent of the state which oppresses him] who possesses the capacity to refuse her advances, and - since teddy’s conception is not immaculate - he has no issue with enjoying a sexual relationship with her even if he then wants to run away from the product of that.

instead, what i like with remadora is that they reveal something which goes against the grain of the rest of the series: that love is not always enough. throughout the seven-book canon, we see time and time again the idea that love - and, crucially, love-as-noble-suffering and love-as-sacrifice - is enough to overcome any problem. entire civil service collaborating with a terrorist regime? don’t trouble yourself, love has won. your mother dying in childbirth leaving you to be neglected in a state institution? your own fault you’re not interested in love.

i understand the genre reasons for this, but i also love the way in which lupin especially exists on the margins of these genre conventions [just as he exists on the margins of wizarding society!]. i’m always struck in deathly hallows that he’s the only person who’s actually realistic about the demands of war - particularly when he tells harry that it is breathtakingly naive for him to think he can get through the fighting without having to shoot to kill - and that part of him having to be shuffled out of the way when harry tells him to return to the pregnant tonks is because, were the story focused on realism, the idea of a wanted man who is considered an unhuman by the state fleeing in order to guarantee the safety of his wife and unborn child becomes eminently reasonable and harry's defense of the nuclear family embarrassingly unradical.

and so i like the idea of lupin seeing tonks - and tonks seeing lupin - initially as just a bit of fun, as the two of them being just two chill single people who think the other is hot and interesting and want to bang because of it.

[which is something fandoms in general really struggle with as a concept. we like epic love stories - and you won't find me objecting to that! - but we're less good at thinking about casual sexual attraction or transient friendships, and how these can be transformative and meaningful without having to end up going any sort of distance.]

and i then like the idea of the relationship being forced into a profundity it doesn’t really have the juice to sustain by the sheer avalanche of grief which besets the two of them - sirius, dumbledore, mad-eye, ted - and by the pressure of the war and the fact that the order is scrambling and the hangover of remus' self-destruction in half-blood prince which makes each cling to the other as a life-raft. i like remadora as something codependent and messy and strange and sad, and i don’t think this prevents it being sincere and fun and based in mutual attraction, but instead that these positive qualities can exist in conjunction with the fact that, without the war, it would have been a summer of fucking and that was probably it.

on tonks herself, i don’t think i can say it better than @evesaintyves in this meta on her character. i’ve been really uncomfortable with quite a lot of stuff i’ve seen recently which has taken against the idea that tonks can be meaningfully read as queer on the basis of what we find in the text, above all because it so often comes with the implication that one cannot imagine her in her canon endgame pairing and presume that she’s something other than straight or cisgender. eve sets out an excellent case for tonks as bolshy and liberated and in tune with herself and fun and confused and in flux and still figuring stuff out about who she is and where she’s going - and this translates, may i say, to an astonishingly beautiful way of writing her, lupin, and the dysfunction inherent between them which i highly recommend you read.

[k-is-for-potassium]

and you were more beautiful when you could fly ~ ★

hey there! you can call me maggie! (or babna lol) i have mentioned my irl first name a couple times tho

they/she/he pronouns page :3

please use gender neutral/fem terms. im okay with and use stuff like dude and girly in a gender neutral way, lmk if you don't want me to :)

everything is platonic!! i say things like "<3" and "ily"platonically, so if you're uncomfortable with this lmk :)

also i swear sometimes quite a bit, i don't usually tag it but i might if there's a lot or smth

legacy of apollo ☀️🎶🏹⚕️✍️

my timezone is est (maybe...) i am in the us tho

i am a minor. adults are okay but no 18+ or big nsfw please

everyone is loved here (unless you're a homophobe, transphobe, terf, aphobe, racist, sexist, map, maga, etc.) 💖

not really any dni's, unless you're someone listed above or a weirdo (you know who you are)

more under the cut!

interests, hobbies, and fandoms

music ~ ☆ taylor swift, olivia rodrigo (shes literally me yall), conan gray, chappell roan, ajr, noahfinnce, cavetown, eminem, mcr, green day, måneskin, lots of broadway musicals, and MUCH more

im always looking to broaden my music horizons, so lmk if you have any suggestions! my music taste is crazy i like basically anything so i'll probably love any of y'all's recs lol

musicals (yes they get their own section) ~ ★ EPIC: the musical, hamilton, in the heights, SIX, dear evan hansen, be more chill, heathers, (kinda) wicked, les miserables, and beetlejuice, but the list is always expanding

movies/tv shows ~ ☆ the owl house, gravity falls, mean girls (movie and musicals), house md (not done yet, on season 7? i think), hazbin hotel, helluva boss, percy jackson, bluey, all versions of tmnt (especially rottmnt), the hunger games, metal family

video games ~ ★ minecraft, animal crossing, splatoon (2 and 3), kirby, pokémon, stardew valley

i have my own pink switch lite :3

books ~ ☆ pjo, hoo, toa, tsats, mcga, kane chronicles (not done yet), the iliad, hopefully the odyssey eventually, circe and tsoa, the hunger games, wof, kinda lotr and hobbit, probably more that i can't think of

im currently reading the iliad (huge greek mythology phase rn lol)

i'm a musician! i play clarinet in my school band and flute, piano, ukulele, and guitar in my own time :)

i am also a scout (bsa), my rank is tenderfoot :3

my favorite colors are purple and yellow!

#1 icarus supporter

i LOVE making new friends, if you wanna be moots you can dm or askbox me :D

alts:

@/babna-arts: just an art acc

@/apollo-god-of--like--everything: etm apollo rp/ask blog

@/the-greek-pantheon: general greek gods rp

@/not-the-musician: pjo oc rp (also not rly active)

@/all-i-have-is-my-name: another pjo oc lmao

and some secret others :3

☆~ credit ~★ babna origin 😨 @/saradika and @/saraduka-graphucs – the beautiful dividers and "introduction" banner my pfp and header are from pinterest and the lyrics are from beetlebug's "lepidopterist" ♡

[oh-to-be-a-murderer]

If its TL and u DR "if I call you a term that is meant for a gender you aren't, I wasn't trying to be offensive, I genuinely call people gendered terms in a non gendered way. If it offends you please let me know and I promise to stop it immediately"

🏳️‍🌈 TAGS I CALLS PEOPLE IN A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM!!!!! 🏳️‍🌈

So if you know my I love to avoid your general pronouns and decide to go with some that is a synonym of 'sibling'. For example instead of saying he/she I would say girl/bro. Now the terms I use to address people may sometimes make them think I am misgendering them but I mean it in a completely gender neutral way.

When I call you:

Girl/Gurl:

You don't necessarily have to identify as a female or be poly, I use that as a gender neutral way of saying "friend".

Girly/Gurly:

You are specifically my friend and when I add a 'y' to it, you are one of my more favourite friends. Again, gender neutral.

Gurly boo/ Gurly pop:

You are definitely a man, I don't remember the last time I called a girl that. You have to be a man for me to call you these.

Bruh/bro:

This is again gender neutral, you don't have to identify as a man or poly for me to call you these.

Brother:

You are mostly women, unless you're not and I'm trying to be a bit professional. Only call men that who are much older than me and I need to let them feel comfortable with me.

Gurly Gurl:

You are my absolute bestie doesn't matter gender and I absolutely adore you.

[writing-in-glitter-pen]

♡ Cooking With the Genshin Men ♡

Cooking together is such an adorable domestic moment, one that fills your home with warmth and love ♡ All the genshin men behave differently in the kitchen, they have their strengths and weaknesses. Some want to get involved in the process, some just love watching you work. All love sharing this activity with you ♡

Childe, Zhongli, Kaeya, Diluc x gender neutral reader || fluff, romance

Content Warnings: Lots of swearing in Childe's part, use of the term "pet" in Kaeya's part.

Childe can’t cook for shit but insists on helping. He follows you around the kitchen like a lost puppy, ending up as more of a hinderance than a helper. You’ll start a step and he’ll beg to finish it, saying something like, “take a load off, girlie! I’ll take over (with rizz).”, then fuck it up immensely. He fucks up in ways you didn’t think were possible. Even if he’s just stirring pasta sauce, you’ll end up having to clean it off the ceiling. He’ll get all dejected if you bench him, and you don’t like to see him pout, so you’ll have to get creative. “Darling, will you tie my apron? I just can’t reach back there…” you say, batting your big doe eyes at him. By God, will he tie that apron for you—with the goofiest crooked grin on his face. He’s such a fool for you. You find that delegating tasks like this, ones that have nothing to do with the actual food, to him is the best way to let him feel involved without it looking like an atomic bomb went off in your kitchen. You can ask him to fetch the colander off a high shelf, press the button on the salad spinner (with supervision, or else he might overdo it.), and preheat the oven. Make sure you thank him loads for his help with it, “I don’t know what I’d do without you~”, and throw in a kiss on the cheek for good measure. He’ll feel like your valuable little sous chef, and you’ll both have an edible dinner ♡

Zhongli’s food feels like heaven on your tongue but he takes forever in the kitchen. He’ll offer to make you lunch at noon and it’ll be done by eight o’ clock...the next morning. He doesn’t even notice it; one of the pitfalls of living for a millennia is a loss of his sense of time. That being said, his dishes, both cooked and baked, are divine. So you’ll just have to help him speed up the process. Whining that your hungry every fifteen minutes isn’t the most moral way to achieve that goal, but it definitely has an impact—despite how he hushes you with a, “Patience, sweetheart.”, or if you really bug him, “I am not beyond closing your mouth via physical means.”. You’re not sure what he means by “physical means”, but with the way his voice rumbles like an earthquake when he says it, you don’t want to find out. So you zip it. Another way to have the food ready in the same decade you ordered it is to help! Vegetables he'd otherwise sautee on simmer are softened and browned in five minutes with you on the stove. Meat he'd give an hour-long, full-body Swedish massage to is crushed to inch-thickness in mere moments with your mallet. You let him handle marinades--them being his specialty, but you have him start them days in advance, so he can flavor them to his standards and you won't be left waiting for dinner 'til you're a sun-bleached skeleton. Zhongli is used to taking things at a snail's pace, so he needs you in the driver's seat to hit the gas. Though, you equally need him to tell you when it's important to slow down. Cooking is not a loveless process, the amount of care he puts into food for you is a way of expressing his affections--he won't settle for anything less than perfect if it's on your plate. So he is happy to stand over a cauldron of broth all day, stirring it, adding in anything he believes might be missing, giving the water ample time to pull every last drop of flavor from the bones, all for it to be a moment of joy in your stomach. To him, any time he spends in service to you, no matter how tedious the task, is time well spent.

Kaeya is a fantastic cook, especially when he’s drunk, but he won’t share any of his secret recipes with you. He tells you it's because he's sworn to his family to never speak a breath of them...but really, he wants you to have to ask him to make it for you. And he will! Happily! It brings so much satisfaction to his soul to have you eat something he's made and it bring a smile to your face. It makes him feel valuable and like he's properly taking care of you--two things that deep down, he's quite insecure about. Not to mention, he goes wild for that pleading look in your eyes when you ask him to cook you a specific recipe you're craving. Despite how much he loves it, he just has to tease you for it; "Oh, look at you begging. I didn't realize I had a pet to feed.", his signature smirk adorning his face. He'll top it off with a kiss to your forehead, chuckling at your face contorted in offence. You can only stay mad for so long, as the moment you take your first bite, all you feel is smitten. Just like his skill as a flirt, he really is just that good. He'll soak in the sight of your content, dreamy face, fulfilled in how much you enjoy something he's made for you. Fulfilled in seeing first-hand how he has a positive impact on you--shooing away his internalized fears of not being enough. He's done something good. He's made you happy. And even if he pokes at you for it, he looks forward to you asking him to do it again.

Diluc knows the basics but really, he just isn’t all that into cooking. He has staff to handle that for him and, frankly, he doesn’t have time to pursue it as a hobby. But when you cook for him? You’ve made his day, his year, his life. He’ll replay the memory of the taste on his tongue and warm feeling in his heart over and over again to the point that he literally dreams about it. He’s just so touched that you made something for him. Putting love and effort into this dish with him in mind. He also likes to watch you when you cook; how you flit around the kitchen, the skill you demonstrate when you chop and season...and his front-row seat comes with perks--as you'll periodically hold out a spoon of sauce or broth for him to taste. There's something about you holding that spoon to his lips, the way you blow on it for him with your perfect lips, him sipping it with you gently supporting his chin that sends his mind reeling, his heart stuttering. He has to restrain himself from asking to marry you right then and there--the thought of you with his ring on your finger, of this dreamlike scene in the kitchen being a daily occurence, it's just too overwhelming to ignore. Maybe it's the way he feels doted on when you do so, he's at the mercy of your hands and you use them to care for him, to ask him his preferences on what you're making for him. There's really nothing better. He'll go to sleep that night with a warm feeling in his stomach and that composed smile on his on his face, hoping you'll cook for him again tomorrow.

[prentissluvr]

i dont have all of my sam thots and dean thoughts just yet but I had to send in this bc I completely forgot about meg! sam

and its a damn shame that we didn't see more of that bc it solidified my stance on being a sam girlie

we got at least 3 episodes of demon dean (i have not seen him yet i've only heard about it) but we got like less than half an hour with meg! sam and honestly we deserved more with him

meg! sam made me feel lots of things LOLL

(i wanted to be jo SO BAD in that episode LMAO)

now i need your thots on him please :p

KJDFSJL NO BECAUSE... NOOO I CANT thinking about the amount of meg!sam edits i've seen in the past few days. thinking about the one saved in my camera roll. thinking about throwing up pissing my pants projectile vomiting and passing the fuck out. i reiterate tho, i'm normal!! i'm so so so normal and i don't feel things about it!!!!!!!

i'm honestly still like borderline unsure about how nsfw i want to get on this blog, but uhhh i'm just gonna start typing and see where my dirty fucking mind takes me!

cw : highly suggestive!! no smut, but still absolutely no minors!! MDNI!! contains condescending/mean/possessed sam, but also sweet sam too <33. use of gendered terms, but it is gender inclusive to fem, masc, and gn as much as i could make it! horrible writing it's genuinely just me going feral :))

sooo basically for me the worst (best) part of meg!sam was his voice! it's so bad (never have i ever heard anything hotter in my life). IDK I DONT EVEN THINK I CAN FORM A COHERENT THOUGHT OVER THIS NOT GONNA LIE. uhm uhhh ummmm uhhhh uhmmmm.

so basically so basically, essentially, wwowowowowowowowifjhshf alright lets focus on one thing at a time.

we'll start with that goddamn voice of his. the way it goes from teasing, condescending to deeper, more gravelly and matter-of-fact and then back to condescending LIKE WHOO IM GONNA NEED TO TAKE A LAP. idk just thinking about his large hand on the back of your head, maybe tangled in your hair if the way you wear it allows for that, and his veiny forearm visible through your peripheral vision as he says "open up.. that's a girl" like he did to jo😭😭😭 (or he's says "thaaat's it" to keep things gender neutral, dragging out the "that's" for an extra second, that extra gravel in his condescending tone).

and while this is in possessed!sam context, he'd definitely say things like that normally, i do personally envision him to be less condescending and more sincere. either way, hot as fuck if you ask me. also this isn't meg!sam, but in season seven he says "good girl" and i do listen to that clip several times a day, i am so serious when i say that and i have no shame about it!! i have daddy issues so i do not care!!! so yeah he also says good girl/boy/whatever variation you enjoy best <3 uhmmm yeah but the main point is his hot as fuck voice, right next to your ear with his breath tickling you sensitive skin. especially with that whisper. oh god the whisper😭 and along with "that's a girl," there's atta girl and he'd use that one too so i'll go die in a hole :))) but yeah he genuinely thinks you're so good for him so expect that praise, whether you want it sweet or mean.

then we also have his facial expressions!! the smirk he uses to rile you up or that he flashes you, all mean and haughty because he knows he's getting to you. the fake pity too!! lord help me, once again the utterly fake pity just falls under that condescending persona that was so hot about meg!sam. i'm just gonna use photo evidence and you can imagine him looking at you like that!! enjoy!

last thing i have to say about meg!sam is manhandling!! ahahaahahahaahahah i'm normal and okay!! (this is a cry for help i need him so bad). um yeah while i hate the context of the manhandling of jo in the episode because it's crossing so many boundaries, i will still enjoy the fact that he is hot. so yeah! have fun thinking about sam whirling you around and pinning you between his chest and nearest surface, hand on your forehead to tilt your chin up and give him full access to the skin of your neck. his other hand is pinning your wrist to whatever surface is behind you, and your own free hand is tangled in his hair and he lays wet, desperate kisses all over your neck and collarbone. that's all hahahahaha :)))) feeling so sane right now!!

[lissu]

sorry if this is something you'd rather not answer, i totally understand, but i have been going through it these last few months lol. how did you realise/come to terms with being trans? i've been in gender limbo for a while now and i'm simultaneously sick of it and terrified of what the truth might be 😅

i don't mind answering, but this is not going to be simple or short.

buckle up for a lissu gender journey! i'm giving you as much context as i can, i hope there's something here that can help you out.

content warning for mentions of eating disorders (not in detail) and internalized transphobia.

this is baby lissu. i was luckier than most people, as my parents are feminists and they insisted that every kid got the same hobbies, opportunities and expectations. i have two older brothers and an older sister. we wore clothes as hand-me-downs (including this beautiful hat), so i got to wear "boy clothes" from a young age.

my first language is finnish, which is gender-neutral (no gendered pronouns at all), and i think that this gender-neutral upbringing caused me to not think about gender at all in my childhood.

then puberty hit, and i realized i hated being a girl. the 00s sexism was real, but also being a "tomboy" got me a lot of teasing – there was no winning in middle school i think. i didn't know about being trans or anything back then. i cosplayed boy characters (i also drew a beard on myself a lot and just walked around like that??) and dreamt of binding but didn't know how to do it.

i was really drawn to emo/visual key aesthetic, idolized femme men (or, bishounen as we anime girlies called them) and cried when i had to wear makeup or dresses. i developed an eating disorder in my teenage years, i was so uncomfortable with my body and myself.

in my late teens, i went full femme and got hetero married. every time i got more femme my ed got worse (my boob situation was really unfortunate for a Guy). at this point i also got into some radfemmy thoughts, thinking that being a woman is supposed to be awful and something that people just bear and don't want to be. i internalized that thinking, kind of in a doomerist/blackpilled sense where i thought that being a woman equals suffering. sprinkle in some man-hating here and you have a beautiful stew of trans denial.

(jfc i look like a stepford wife in photos from this time, the dead eyes really make the look)

i did ask my spouse if he'd be alright with dating a man a lot, in that "if i woke up tomorrow and was a man what would you do" way. i think already at this point i knew this was not right for me, but like i said, i was fully convinced every woman hated being a woman.

in 2019 i cut my hair, cried a lot, and thought about coming out as nonbinary. i had a lot of mental health issues going on (undiagnosed adhd and workplace bullying made me burn out) and i decided i was too busy for a gender crisis.

at this point i kinda knew what was going on – i started daydreaming about being a guy. still, i thought it was impossible, like literally an unattainable dream. i had internalized transphobia, and on top of that, trans healthcare is really hard to get into in finland and i thought i was "too old" to transition at 24. so i kinda figured out it would be easier to just live as a weird girl – the thing is, it was really hard, and then 2020 happened so i went back to closet full-time.

i have to mention i was wrongly diagnosed as bipolar 1 at this point and on heavy medication (difficult women amirite) – most of my time was just about surviving and not really living. my ex was addicted to drugs and mean to me, and i overall felt like a heaping pile of garbage. i had fully committed to being femme, but seeing photos of myself during '20-'24 i always look like i'm in drag. i kind of am.

this is taken a day after my divorce. i was in such denial at this point i fully committed to being a lesbian. i thought all my issues were because i was dating the wrong gender and not because i was not living like i wanted to.

i think something shifted in the next months. i was re-evaluating who i was and who i wanted to be with... i don't think there was one single instance that made me realize i was trans but maybe it was a lot of things.

i kept dreaming about being a guy. i was jealous of guys at the gym. i was jealous of guys in the same way i'd been since i was that weird anime-loving girl in my teens – i was wondering why guys got all the things i didn't get? why didn't guys hate being a guy? i also met some women (cis and trans) who were clearly overjoyed about being a woman and identified with it strongly. it made me realize not everyone hates being a woman, surprise surprise.

at some point i realized i don't have to be a woman if i hate it so much, no one is forcing me to live like that except myself.

(this is me, two months on t showcasing my new favorite mug.)

i dated another trans guy briefly and he had some tips on how to get on hormones without the hassle of finnish trans health care, and when i heard it i immediately knew i wanted it. i had no hesitation and contacted the clinic the same day. it affected me a lot, seeing a hot and out trans guy about my age, short and still so confident in himself. he proved a lot of my fears wrong, and it was the final push i needed to start a medical transition.

it was like admitting something i had known for years and yet i had to practice saying it out loud. a big thing that made all the difference for me was that i realized that i didn't just have to tolerate being who i was "born" as and i could choose what to do with my life.

i would say that the biggest reasons it took me so long (29 years) to realize i was trans were:

gender-neutral language and upbringing

lack of information AND misinformation about gender affirmation and trans healthcare. transphobia made me think i was going to be ugly and unlovable if i transitioned. also the trans clinic in finland seems to be widely feared and hated, and i have medical trauma and putting myself through that seemed like a nightmare. i am now getting a referral to the clinic, now that i'm four months on hormones and getting my top surgery next week (i still need the finnish diagnosis to get hysto). i am still afraid of the clinic.

man-hating in leftist circles. even my trans-inclusive friends said jokingly that all men are awful or that they hate being attracted to men. it made me afraid to tell these people i was a guy and i held a lot of similar beliefs

i had Other Issues going on and it was easier to blame my discomfort on anything else than dysphoria

fear of transphobia. online it seems like everyone hates us and i was worried people were going to cut me off. well, no one cut me off and people have been kind and accepting, curious and supportive. i'm the first trans person a lot of people around me have knowingly met (i hang out a lot with 50+ yo athletes in my boxing circles) and even people who have never heard of it before are accepting. most people don't actually care, including my parents (i did mention the feminist thing upfront lmao)

the last part is kind of hard to explain but admitting i was a guy felt like giving up on something. i was a good-looking woman with, as mentioned, great assets (f cup tits at 21 did make me feel Some Type of Way) and i had some shame in admitting that i didn't want the attention i'd been getting. like i said, this is hard to explain but i felt like i was losing some privilege or "downgrading" from a hot and weird woman to a short and weird man.

my dysphoria didn't make me want to kill myself. i think there's a lot of emphasis on trans suffering, and because my genitals or boobs didn't make me always feel awful, i thought it was just body dysmorphia (thinking i was fat or ugly when i was neither)

after i started my transition and came out of the closet, i've been happier with myself than ever before. ofc my issues didn't just magically vanish, but my self-hate is not adding to the pile. for the first time ever i feel HOT and BEAUTIFUL and when i look in the mirror i smile.

i think admitting the truth to myself and my loved ones WAS terrifying, but i've never felt loved in the same way. i love myself as ME and so do my loved ones.

one more thing, i think that when i was presenting a woman it was really conditional to me. i was only a woman if i was dressed femme enough or had makeup on or when my hair was done and then the rest of the time i didn't feel like anything, really. when i came to terms with being a guy, i feel like a guy now 24/7. i don't have any terms and conditions to being a guy the same way i had for being a woman.

i know this was like the new new testament, feel free to ask about any of the specifics for clarification!

[invidiia]

yandere poe and ranpo (together and platonic) with a teenager reader who had a bad childhood and coping it by being a girly girl ( getting they nails done, having a bunch of stuff animals, wears pink, love’s makeup, etc btw this are just examples because girly girl can mean many thing you know? SO SORRY if this is too much)

❐ - platonic yandere!ranpo and platonic yandere!poe (together) with a teenage reader into girly things

note ; first off, i'm sorry if this wasn't what you expected! i usually give my own interpretation of them as yanderes, and i usually just do what i thini would happen unless someone gets specific about it. on the other hand, i'm so glad to be getting into this request!! i've got over 8 requests in my inbox about platonic yandere ranpoe and i'm just??? y'all must like them a whole lot!! but yeah, if anyone has any other fics like this, then i wanna see, because i've never seen anyone do this?! i love ranpoe and platonic yanderes, so i'm glad to be combining them!! enough from me, onto the hcs!

prompt ; ranpo and poe are supportive of their traumatized little teenager!!

warning ; platonic yandere themes, stalking, kidnapped reader, gender neutral terms used but implied fem!reader, romantic ranpoe

masterlist - rules - previous

RANPO and POE are incredibly supportive of their teenager! they just think it's the cutest thing ever, their child being into all the girly things. the two love it!! they think it just suits you so well!

if they kidnapped you, there's a really good chance that they already knew that you enjoyed such girly things.

ranpo already knew, obviously. if you didn't open up to them when they brought you there? no need - ranpo pretty much stalked you and found out pretty much everything about you before you even knew you were going to be living with him!

the detective shamelessly stalked you, conveniently appearing in the same places as you, no matter where you ended up. the candy store? he liked candy, too! the clothing store? he was shopping for a lady-friend! although he never outright said he was following you, he just had a reason to he in the exact places as you, all the time.

and so did poe. when you happened to bump into the reappearing detective while you shopped, the taller man was right next to him, joining ranpo while he happened to be in the same place as you. every time you met him, he had a raccoon on his shoulders, the animal's tail swinging while you smiled at it.

sometimes, he even offered to pay for your stuff if the two of them walked up while you were paying. poe would conveniently look at your wallet with just barely enough money to pay for what you were about to buy, both his and ranpo's eyes catching the cute charms and accessories that hung off the purse.

of course, you always smiled at them and declined. sometimes, ranpo and poe just insisted, and you gave in, allowing them to pay for what you bought. it was just so nice of them! at first you thought nothing of it, maybe it was just the couple wanting to do something nice for a teenager who barely had enough to pay for their bag? but as it kept happening, you got confused, and began to think a bit more. you even asked them at one point, but the taller of the couple just waved his hand and spoke, "we just felt like it, don't worry."

so when you woke up in a strange place away from the comforts of your pink-decorated bedroom, you didn't expect your kidnappers to be the nice couple that you bumped into fairly often when in public.

upon finding out about your childhood, ranpo and poe are just absolutely compassionate. they felt horrible for you. coos of sympathy and pity were heard every time they noticed something new, like the colorful bracelets on your hand, your painted nails, your pink clothing, hairclips, everything. you'd grown used to it after some time, but the couple just couldn't help but get a tiny bit sad while they were reminded of the reason why you were the way you are.

some time after opening up just a bit more, ranpo and poe gladly allowed you to do what you pleased. they happily went shopping with you, following behind you while you skipped through the store, picking out nail polishes and looking at the couple as a way of asking if you could get it. the answer was never no, as they were happy to get you what you want. sort of as an apology for just taking you! it's okay to take advantage of that, poe was rich and felt bad he kidnapped you, so might as well 🤷‍♂️

when you got your nails done, ranpo sat with you while the manicurist took a file to your fingers. if you had a free hand, he held that during the process if the worker accidentally hurt you while doing your nails.

sometimes, even poe tagged along, sitting on the other side while you spoke, while karl jumped off his shoulder and climbed onto yours. you flinched a bit every time, while the person working on your nails sighed in annoyance at the movement. but it didn't matter, because you had ranpo and poe, and those were the only two you needed to be happy with you.

[forwomenbiwomen]

Hi!! Do you know anything about how the ideas of sex and gender became sperated?

To me, they've always been synonyms. It's just that "sex" was a scientific term (bio and med) and that "gender" was the everyday term. Just like how "menstruation" is a scientific term but people would generally say "period" instead, unless you're in a health class or at the doctor's.I know obviously trans people say they see sex and gender as different (although they really don't always act like they do.....I'm thinking specifically of trans people who want to change their sex marker on driver's liscenses and birth certificates but I'm sure there are other examples.) And I still have no clue what they actually mean by gender.

Anyway! I started looking into gender critical because the phrase made me think GCs were critical of gender roles and stereotypes. But it sounds like GCs also consider gender to be different than sex and I don't quite understand it. I've seen GCs say they're for gender abolition. So when you say "gender" are you using it as a stand-in for stereotypes? Or does it mean something else?

(P.S. I'm sending this ask to a few other GC tumblr accounts to hear different opinions/explanations)

Hello! 👋👋👋 💞💞

Yes, gender and sex are different. One is socially constructed and oppressive, and the other is biology. It did used to mean pretty much the same thing (bcs gender roles were absolutely rigid in the past) but with second wave feminism it began to take on a separate meaning, emphasising the way that socially constructed behaviours are expected from and leveraged to harm women.

Gender then basically means feminine or masculine behaviours and presentation, with no inherently corresponding sex.

Where radfems are critical of it is in the way women are expected to conform to these behaviours and presentations otherwise they are derided and ostracised by society.

Conservatives think

Female = Woman = Feminine

Male = Man = Masculine

Which leaves no room for GNC people and is biased against women (if you don't know, femininity is inherently passive and decorative)

Libfems/TRAs think (or at least their actions indicate)

Woman = Feminine

Man = Masculine

And ignores sex. This again leaves no room for GNC people. This can be seen in the countless times they claim a masculine woman to be an 'egg', or a feminine man to be an 'egg'.

Radfems think

Female = Woman

Male = Man

This doesn't presuppose anything about the person's behaviour or presentation. It is the only one to ignore gender completely, therefore only describing adult females as women and adult males as men. GNC people are thereby entirely free to present however they wish, while still acknowledging their sex, which is unchangeable and neutral.

Without culturally pressured gender roles (gender abolition) radfems believe that women's oppression under gender will fade away. It means doing away with feminine clothes making you "girly" and masculine clothes making you "manly". It means being confident as a woman isn't bitchy and being confident as a man is heroic; both are simply confident.

When TRA's claim to subvert gender roles, it is only true in that they are overwhelmingly GNC. However, they are working within the patriarchal framework; they believe that your behaviour and presentation (gender) is indicative of your inner, spiritual sex, and that GNC means you were born in the wrong body, because men don't act like that, or women dont act like that. Just look at all the stories of "I played with dolls and was effeminate, that means I'm actually a woman inside!!" etc.

By changing their presentation, they believe this identifies them with something other than their own sex. There is nothing else to tether them to this nebulous idea of sex escapism. In non-binary cases, this androgynous presentation is believed to separate you from being a woman and a man, despite those words only describing adult humans. It is the species-specific word for adult of that sex. (side note: this is the same linguistic pattern used for other animals, such as a adult female elephant being a cow and an adult male elephant being a bull. They are species-specific and indicate nothing about personality.)

It is sometimes backed up with pseudo-science such as brain sex, which has been debunked in several notable studies. Along with dysphoria, they are touted as 'proof' that they're a "man trapped in a woman's body" or vice versa. This claim is impossible if you don't believe there is consistent, verifiable dimorphism between the brains of men and women (brain sex) or that trans people somehow possess the soul of another sex. When they say that sex and gender are different, what they really mean is that they are only different on the outside.

It is far, far more likely that dysphoric individuals simply do not identify with the socially constructed gender pushed onto their sex. This does not make them another sex, this makes them GNC individuals.

[kiunlo]

i hate that we just let cis people use the terms afab and amab when they're writing their stupid ass heterosexual fanfics like. okay so we got a afab reader fic? cool beans. except the "reader" is so very clearly a cishet woman that it's not even funny. like girly idk how to tell you this but not every afab person is a woman 💀 that's the whole fucking point of a person specifying that they are afab: they were assigned female at birth, and that experience of growing up being percieved by others as a girl may be important for them to mention, BUT THEY MAY NO LONGER IDENTIFY AS A WOMAN. and i feel as though reader fanfic as it is right now would simply benefit greatly with people simply being fucking HONEST and just writing "cishet woman reader" instead of "afab reader" because we all fucking know that's what you really mean. don't even get me started on the people who write "fem reader" fics that still make it clear that yeah it's a woman reader, but a CIS one, not a trans one. i have NEVER read and i mean NEVER!!!! read a fucking reader fic that could have EVER been read as if the reader was a trans woman. a trans man, sure, but never trans women! the times that i HAVE seen "amab reader" fanfic? again, same problem. very clearly a cis male reader. and the gender neutral reader fanfics are barely "gender neutral" at all. like it is so SEVERELY hard to find any type of queer or trans reader fics. the catering is always only towards cis readers and nobody else, and with people falsely categorising their fics as "afab reader" or "gender neutral reader" when the actual content of the fic makes it clear that it's a cis woman reader makes it even fucking harder to find the shit that's actually queer.

[superkirbylover]

kinda a stupid question so i would understand not answering it but what was your assigned birth gender?

again you don't have to answer if you don wanna i was just curious

nah i don't mind at all! hope you don't mind i elaborate a little too

i'm AFAB (assigned female at birth). despite this, i never really identified with being feminine. my mom was like this too; both of us can be described as tomboys. we have moments where we do like being feminine and present as such, but for the most part we're neutral or masculine. in my case, though, i definitely leaned more masculine.

i'm sure i've told this story a thousand times, but i like telling it: when i was on scratch (and later, roblox), people often didn't realize what my gender was. my mic quality was poor and i was at the ripe age of 11, where boys and girls would sound really similar still. people would hear my voice, and either refer to me with "he" or "she." i used to correct people on this, but because of how common it was, i stopped. i wasn't sure why, but i thought it was funny that people were confused on my gender. hell, i laughed when i first called with scratchU8 and BenDaMan (now known as nebita) on skype. nebita thought i sounded like a boy, and scratchU8 admitted the same. it's a time i look back fondly on. this trend continued with future friends, and while i corrected them, part of me wish i hadn't. so, a year later i told my friends a few things: don't call me a queen, don't call me ma'am or any feminine terms. basically, treat me like a boy in everything but call me a girl if needed. my friends did their best to do that. they would sometimes say they forgot i was a girl because of how i acted, and i would say sometimes i wish i was a boy.

i don't remember when, but i believe when i was... 16, i was starting to hear about other identities outside of being transgender. i heard of being trans when i was 12, though knew little of it. all i know is it meant if you are trans, it means you were once a girl and now a boy and vice versa. when i started to hear about other things, like nonbinary and etc, i tilted my head. there was a classmate at my school who said they were genderfluid the previous year, but i was unfortunately caught in the anti-sjw youtube era so i thought it was just a ploy to go "ha!! you assumed my gender!!"

i looked up these alternate genders, and i remembered the genderfluid classmate and looked up genderfluid, reading about it. and when i read that it could mean that someone felt like they were a boy, a girl, neither or both at the same time, a switch clicked in my head. "yeah!!" i thought, "this is how i feel!!" i didn't dislike being a girl and certainly didn't desire bottom surgery (or top surgery at the time), but i liked being perceived as masculine. i regretted when i corrected fans of mine on my gender because it would mean one less person using he/him or they/them. i hated being seen as a girly person, but i didn't loathe my womanhood. it's why i felt neutral being called a woman and "ma'am" but felt more connection with being called a man and "guy."

that day, i put she/he/they on my bios. and it hasn't left since

[rodolfoparras]

read that post and honestly i just need to rant a lil bit

it just gets me really frustrated how entitled some fem readers/authors are

scrolling through tumblr, sometimes i come across f!reader fics and that's fine yk i just scroll past without interacting

but this specific time, the author went "cw: implied female reader" and then proceeded to only refer to the reader as female, pronouns and adjectives. like girlie that isn't implied it's forced down your throat

then after scrolling i check the tags, only to find that they had the audacity to tag it as gender neutral. no fem reader tag, only gender neutral

as well as people tagging gender neutral as male..... just makes me frustrated

sorry for the rant just needed to get that out

- 🌷

Don’t apologize for the rant! I totally get your frustration.

A lot of times I’ll read a fic and the reader will be short, or “drown” in the male character’s clothes or be very passive when it comes to taking charge in the character and readers reactions which is all fine and dandy, some men are short, do not like to take charge, and are less muscular but what makes me personally uncomfortable is that I’ve seen those characteristics commonly used in fem reader fics, and I only see them used in gn pieces so I as a male reader already know who the author is thinking of here even though pronouns are omitted

I also cant help but wonder if fem readers / authors genuinely do not understand certain terms used, for example that “gn” doesn’t mean “fem reader” because that’s what it feels like sometimes? To them fem readers are the default so “everything is meant for fem readers so of course gn is only applicable for fem readers even if it stands for gender neutral”

I also cant help but feel a wee bit protective of mlm characters bc male readers are excluded in everything so when I see mizrak or olrox I cant help but get excited for the abundance of content that is meant for me to read. When fem reader/authors want to put those characters in the gn category they are bound to exclude us bc those pieces are rarely catered toward us

Anyways need him so bad🧎🏻‍♂️

[saintsenara]

asenora i will listen to anything you have to say about these characters ever. please tell us what the tea is with dron

as i rummage through the backlog of messages in my inbox the thing that i have discovered is that you girlies [gender neutral] are absolutely clamouring for citizenship of dron nation.

[thank you to @spectral-kitty, @thesilverstarling, and two mystery anons!]

to which i say, the borders are open, baby. you just have to read the following manifesto:

why fandom needs to stop sleeping on dron

something i am continually banging on about, as regular readers know, is the harry potter series' fondness for assigning [male] characters to narrative mirror pairings.

exploring these pairings is interesting in and of itself without a romantic dimension being involved - i could talk for hours about the mirrored approach to guilt and grief in snape and sirius' characterisation - but it's also true that several of the most interesting ships which can be drawn [however non-canonically] from the text are between the two halves of each mirror pairing.

tomarrymort is the obvious one, snack [or starprince or snirius or whatever we're calling it] is starting to get the attention it deserves, but people are still sleeping on draco malfoy/ron weasley [and also, may i say, on lucius malfoy/arthur weasley and narcissa malfoy/molly weasley], largely - i fear - due to the sheer popularity of drarry and dramione.

i'll be honest that i really don't like dramione, and i'm generally ambivalent towards drarry, but i do love dron. and the narrative mirror aspect is entirely the reason why.

ron and draco begin the series as mirror archetypes within the genre conventions of a children's boarding school romp. ron is the loyal, humble sidekick of the everyman protagonist, draco is the everyman protagonist's posh, stuck-up rival. both are insiders to the world of the story - whereas harry, the reader surrogate, is not - who introduce harry to the positive and negative aspects of the wizarding world respectively.

as a result, ron and draco are mirrors in terms of personality, and are much more similar to each other than either is to harry or hermione. this doesn't, of course, preclude ronarry [a ship i adore] or romione [which i've defended here] or drarry or dramione [if ya nasty], but it introduces a specific - and very interesting - tension into the pairing which is absent from these other ships.

both ron and draco have shared positive traits - they're both loyal [and their loyalty is very practical and pragmatic - ron is not hagrid, whose faith in e.g. dumbledore is totally unwavering; draco is not bellatrix, whose faith in voldemort is the same], they're both highly observant, they're both quick-witted, they're both capable of doing the right thing - if not always immediately [which is, in fact, more admirable than being preternaturally willing to suffer and sacrifice], and so on.

they also have shared negative traits. they're both attention-seeking [ron fucking loves nearly being knifed by sirius and you just know draco was seething], self-aggrandising, insecure, sulky, and predisposed to jealousy.

and this is a gift for authors, because it means that dron butt heads in a relationship in ways which allow for real character growth... or otherwise.

one issue that i have with drarry is that it often feels like the change either one goes through within a fic is kind of out of character. for example, you have a harry who feels insecure and haunted by his ill-treatment of draco [this is a man whose response to committing attempted murder is to be raging that it reduces the time he has free to hit on ginny], or a harry who is chasing after a cool and sophisticated draco who eventually learns to open up [whereas if there's two things draco isn't, it's someone who keeps his thoughts to himself and someone who isn't a distinctly unsophisticated flop].

dron, however, react to conflict in the same way - which means that the two of them finding themselves in conflict with each other absolutely slaps. they also have similar levels of emotional intelligence, and are likely - if they're inclined to - to be able to communicate with each other and work through issues surprisingly effectively. they can be a mess, or they can be a happy-ever-after, and i like that in a ship.

but, while ron and draco are mirror archetypes, they are specifically children's literature mirror archetypes. ron's role as harry's guide to the world diminishes in the later books, as the series' horizons move beyond hogwarts to think about wizarding society and voldemort's impact upon it more widely [he is replaced by characters such as dumbledore]; while harry becomes considerably less bothered by the pettiness of draco's rivalry with him [concerned as it is with things like being good at quidditch and getting away with misbehaviour at school] as the enemies he's focused on shift to being the resurrected voldemort and his death eaters.

which is to say that dron makes considerably more sense within a hogwarts setting than drarry.

as i've said elsewhere, an issue i have with drarry is that it's frequently written in a way which suggests that harry and draco have a mutual obsession with each other - while the actual evidence of canon is that, while draco is [as his archetype demands] preoccupied with what harry's doing, harry rarely gives the impression of caring what his rival is up to unless directly compelled to by draco's own attention-seeking.

ron, in contrast, spends a lot of time noticing things about draco unprompted - he can, for instance, recall overhearing him boasting offhand about what broom he owns in philosopher's stone - and retaining this information in order to deploy it at the opportune time to get a rise out of him. he delights constantly in his misfortune [him being hyped for days because draco's annoyed harry gets a firebolt is beautiful]. he's ready to throw hands with him at any given opportunity, often giving those of us who thrive on cheap innuendo plenty of material in the process [draco finds himself, for example 'on all fours, banging the ground with his fist' after having ron's wand pointed in his face... same, girl.] and he tends to consider draco much more integral to the various shenanigans which take place in the castle than harry does [ron is the main proponent of the 'draco malfoy is the heir of slytherin' theory in chamber of secrets - and he is shook when draco reveals that he's wrong].

and draco does the same. he comes into the trio's compartment on the train in goblet of fire and immediately starts telling ron how unfashionable his dress robes are. he obsesses over ron's position as gryffindor keeper for months - and, of course, makes up a song about it, which isn't exactly helping him pull off 'i don't think about you at all', is it? - and ron is profoundly affected by the taunts in way that harry, who doesn't really care what draco thinks of him, isn't. and he constantly goes out of his way to provoke ron into trying to punch him [him shoulder-barging ron in half-blood prince just after harry's essentially outed him as a death eater in madam malkins... exquisite pettiness].

all of which is to say, their interactions feel very teenage and petty and silly all the way through to the end of half-blood prince in a way that draco's interactions with harry and hermione don't, and - therefore - i sincerely think that dron can be made to work much more plausibly as a pairing in fics set while the characters are at school.

my final point in favour of dron is that they mirror each other in their approach to their other relationships, and the tension this causes is really interesting to explore.

both ron and draco have mirrored attitudes towards their place within their own families - something neither harry nor hermione can have with draco for obvious reasons. ron is one of many siblings and feels overlooked in the crowd; draco is an only child and feels overburdened by the visibility, especially once his father is sent to azkaban. they both conform to behaviours expected of them by family [they are both in the same hogwarts house as generations of their family, they share their families' political views etc.]. they are of the same social class and their families both have a reasonably similar level of political influence [despite what we're told about his insignificance, arthur weasley is known to everyone in the ministry and he's able to throw his weight around to influence policy even before the promotion he receives in half-blood prince], but their material circumstances are divergent. they both heavily resemble their fathers - to the extent that they are immediately recognisable as each man's son - and spend their schooldays defending family honour by playing out lucius and arthur's own petty feud [lucius and arthur - and, indeed, narcissa and molly - are also narrative mirrors, and we deserve many more enemies-to-lovers fics featuring them]. and the course their lives take during the war is dictated as much by their role within their families as it is by their relationship with harry - the scrambling post-dumbledore order operating out of the burrow is a mirror image of the ascendant voldemort operating out of malfoy manor.

they are also obviously defined by their mirrored relationship with harry - most interestingly by a major similarity in their attitude towards him: that both struggle with how jealous they are of harry.

this leads to lots of excellent tension which just isn't possible in drarry or dramione. how do both sets of parents react to the news their sons are in love? how do ron and draco's relationships with harry change as they find each other? how does draco cope with the hustle and bustle of life at the burrow? how does ron deal with having to have dinner at the manor [particularly interesting because the world in which draco lives is one that's familiar to him - he's not going to be shocked by any of the weird stuff in that house, he knows how it all works, so he can ruin christmas by deciding to have his dad arrest lucius for fun instead]?

it's messy, and fun, and it sustains me.

and some recs for the lads?

collateral damage by @danpuff-ao3, which starts out with both of the lads working out their... issues with harry and ends with declarations of going to lunch with each other's mothers.

dance the night away (aka it's true love, you bastards) by evandar, which has as its premise ron and draco ending up, largely by accident, going to the yule ball together.

this great stage of fools by @nanneramma, which correctly demonstrates how ron is charming enough that him being supremely annoying is actually loveable.